Once I'm done with the novel, I plan to go back to doing some short stories. Here are a couple of story elements lying around that might be used for something
( Read more... )
Boring talking scenes are my bane. They're so easy to write! But it's a trap!
The Pooka thing reminded me of an idea I had I never did anything with... people trying to write AIs actually made contact with the spirit world, and started employing actual spirits as 'AIs' for robots and stuff, and VRing people into the spirit world to do similar things. Sort of a cross-dimensional work-from-home scheme.
In the space-otters story you had a good mix of talking and action; it's just that the large number of characters plus the telepathy element made it tough in some spots to follow.
The work-from-home thing reminds me of this comic.
My line of thinking comes partly from my frustration about the lack of plausible near-future SF out there. Everything in the F/SF section these days seems to be either fantasy, game series books (like the incredibly depressing WH40K setting), or aliens-and-spaceships unrealistic SF. A friend pointed me towards Heinlein, who does do the far-future spaceship style, but is a lot more exciting than I tend to write. How about something optimistic, that doesn't implicitly assume adventure and excitement only exist in unrealistic fantasy worlds?
The quote from here is relevant: "Maybe it's just me, but I'm not crazy about super hero stories where everything's all dark and moody. Personally, I like the ones where good guys fight giant apes on the moon and stuff. Remember those? I do. That was back when comic book
( ... )
Well, I need a certain amount of unreality before a story is going to be interesting for me. Near future SF can do that though, if it's weird enough -- Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge is pretty near-future SF, and it did the trick.
Adventure and Excitement are kind of inherently awful for real people, though -- it takes a pretty unrealistic world to make them fun for the characters! 'Cartoon' worlds (like silver age comic books, or D+D) are a lot of fun to read or role play in though.
Oh, and: writing about robots/AIs is a good excuse for including furries in a realistic setting! I made a major novel character an otter-styled robot, justified in-story by "his" creator invoking the Uncanny Valley and implicitly being a furry-fan.
Comments 4
The Pooka thing reminded me of an idea I had I never did anything with... people trying to write AIs actually made contact with the spirit world, and started employing actual spirits as 'AIs' for robots and stuff, and VRing people into the spirit world to do similar things. Sort of a cross-dimensional work-from-home scheme.
Reply
The work-from-home thing reminds me of this comic.
My line of thinking comes partly from my frustration about the lack of plausible near-future SF out there. Everything in the F/SF section these days seems to be either fantasy, game series books (like the incredibly depressing WH40K setting), or aliens-and-spaceships unrealistic SF. A friend pointed me towards Heinlein, who does do the far-future spaceship style, but is a lot more exciting than I tend to write. How about something optimistic, that doesn't implicitly assume adventure and excitement only exist in unrealistic fantasy worlds?
The quote from here is relevant: "Maybe it's just me, but I'm not crazy about super hero stories where everything's all dark and moody. Personally, I like the ones where good guys fight giant apes on the moon and stuff. Remember those? I do. That was back when comic book ( ... )
Reply
Adventure and Excitement are kind of inherently awful for real people, though -- it takes a pretty unrealistic world to make them fun for the characters! 'Cartoon' worlds (like silver age comic books, or D+D) are a lot of fun to read or role play in though.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment